


Quirks

by inbox



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Hand Fetish, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 22:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sweet and fluffy hand adoration.</p>
<p>Originally posted on the Fallout kmeme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quirks

It's amazing where you can find a little piece of domesticity in the wilder parts of the Mojave. Sometimes you'd luck out and meet a prospector who greeted you like a long-lost friend rather than the total stranger you were. Sometimes it was running into a caravan risking it on the back roads, joining their party like it was the most natural thing to do in exchange for nothing more than a safe campfire that night and maybe a little discount. Sometimes it was just a working lamp and a halfway comfortable couch, a magazine propped on your knee and the soft sounds of someone half asleep with their head in your lap.  
  
Outside a radstorm vicious enough to flay skin raged on, the air full of dirt that sent Courier's Geiger counter shrieking and Arcade gagging as he wrenched his shirt up over his nose, squinting into a blind fog and hoping to various gods that they'd find shelter soon. Here, safely insulated indoors in an abandoned mining barracks with old rags and dirty shirts stuffed against the door to ward against dust, there was nothing to do but pass the evening in comfortable silence.

Arcade gingerly hooked his foot around the leg of the coffee table and dragged it a little closer, ignoring the resentful screech of steel legs against a concrete floor. They'd walked for hours today, his new-ish boots rubbing like hell on his toes until he'd laid down the law and insisted on taking an hour out of the midday sun to lurk in the shade and recuperate. Now, many hours and a pair of fresh socks later, he wriggled his toes and recrossed his legs, savouring the sheer joy of sitting still. A brief touch of fine-tuning scraped the coffee table into a perfect position to allow the most effective arrangement of long legs, a magazine and a half-drained beer that was still almost cold.  
  
Courier shifted restlessly, trying to find a cool patch of cotton on Arcade's thigh. He was still awake, barely, wriggling like a coyote pup as he stared at the magazine from a blind angle.  
  
"I can move it so you can see the article," Arcade said. "Or I can read it aloud."  
  
"Nah. S'good. Too tired to think tonight," he said in that curious mishmash accent of his. "What're you reading anyways?"  
  
Arcade flipped the magazine closed for a moment. "Milsurp Review," he said dryly. "It was a choice between this, a copy of Giggles'n'Garters or Atlas Shrugged. You know how angry objectivism makes me--"  
  
"--and yer not very giggly," Courier helpfully interjected, slapping away the pinch to the arm this earned him.  
  
"So a fascinating article about rings forming in a .357 cylinder when firing .38 rounds it is." He licked his fingertip and turned the page. "Maybe now I'll have something to contribute to the sparkling conversation next time you go adventuring and leave me behind in that tomb."  
  
"Nah," said Courier, rolling onto his back properly and looking up at Arcade. He pressed his cheek to the curve of his stomach, stubble catching on the soft cotton of his undershirt. "Nah," he said again. "Here on out I think I need you all the time."  
  
Arcade made to lick his fingertip again but Courier caught his hand, pressing his lips to his knuckles in a chaste kiss.  
  
"You know how to flatter a man," he said, the scrape of unshaven skin making nerves in his fingertips tingle and spark. "Need or want?"  
  
"Hmm?" Courier examined his prize like it was a fascinating jewel, held close enough that his breath felt warm and damp as it ruffled the fine hair scattered across the back of Arcade's hand. "You cut yourself again."  
  
"It's only a scratch," he said patiently. "I've had worse. I've _done_ worse."

A long, thin line arched across the meat of his thumb, the result of hurriedly digging through dry dead wood to retrieve a dropped energy cell. Courier traced it with his fingertip as if committing it to memory.  
  
"Need an' want," said Courier after a spell, satisfied that Arcade's fingers were truly undamaged. "I need yer brains. Things are gonna get mighty confusing soon."  
  
"And want?"

He felt the shrug rather than saw it, eyes drifting closed as Courier kissed his palm with parted lips, the tip of his tongue tracing Arcade's lifeline. "Always want you," he said, the words muffled by flesh and bone. "Y'know that."

"I do," Arcade acknowledged. "Help me turn the page."

A swipe of his tongue across the pad of Arcade's fingertip served nicely, and he relinquished his grip just long enough for Arcade to flick past a page of advertisements before capturing his hand again.

He kept reading, his concentration only slipping when Courier's quiet adoration of his hand – thumbs gently stroking across the bowl of his palm, lacing their fingers together into a pleasing pattern of burnt-sugar warm and pale gold – slipped from sweetly innocent to a promise of something more. He glanced away from an opinion piece about the value of Carcano bolt-action rifles as pertaining to serious milsurp collectors circa 2065 and caught Courier's eye, arching an eyebrow as his ring finger was sucked on with something approaching a fervour.

Courier let it go with an obscene pop, frowning. "What're you starin' at?"

"You," said Arcade, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a grin. "You and your hand... thing."

"I like your hands," he said defensively, emphasising his point with a puff of air that felt icy cold on Arcade's damp skin. "You've got good hands. Strong an'..."

"...big?"

"Yeah," said Courier, completely oblivious. "Big hands. I like watching you do stuff with 'em."

"I know," he said, discreetly wiping his hand dry before resting palm-down on Courier's chest, toying idly with the buttons on his shirt. "I'm getting very used to you watching me like a spectre." There was a pause. "Like a ghost."

"An' I like the way they feel an' I like how they look. Like, I dunno, watchin' you tie up yer bootlaces. I'm all thumbs when it comes to fiddly shit but you're... y'know. Good."

"Deft?"

"If you say so."

Arcade made a chuffing sound of amusement, still reading as his fingers nimbly until a shirt button just enough that he could walk his fingers under warm cotton and card them through the sparse curls hidden underneath. Courier just sighed, a soft contented noise, eyes finally closed as he let himself relax.

After a while he dragged Arcade's hand free of his shirt, drawing it to his cheek and turning just enough that he could press a kiss to the join between thumb and wrist. "Must think I'm a bit funny in the head when I do this," he said softly. "Actin' up all like a woman and getting kissy over yer hands."

It was Arcade's turn to shrug, letting the magazine droop and fall to the floor as he slouched down, rolling the brown glass bottle between his fingers. "We've all got our quirks," he said. "I _like_ your quirks. Maybe I just haven't discovered mine yet."

Courier cracked open one eye and squinted up at him. "Quirks? You sayin' I've got more than one?"

"You have lots," Arcade told him, disentangling his hand yet again and pushing gently at his shoulder, a clear invitation to get up. "Dozens, in fact. Some infuriating, some endearing, and all of them yours."

Bare feet hit the floor as Courier pushed himself up from the sagging cushions, pinning Arcade with a shrewd look. "Reckon you've got a few quirks of yer own. You just don't want to admit it."

"I have no quirks," replied Arcade airily, setting the bottle down by the side of the couch and kicking the magazine under the coffee table. "I am practically perfect in every way."

"Sure you don't, Mister Always There To Watch Me Shave. Come to bed. I got lots more I can tell you about. _Lots_ more."

\--- 

Arcade and Courier slept in a tangle of limbs and soft woollen blankets, an ingrained habit of sleeping with one hand tugged over and pressed to Courier's chest going unremarked but not unobserved. Outside the radstorm blew itself into nothingness, and tomorrow they would walk together until one of them said stop.


End file.
